


Step Into the Daylight

by fireaway



Category: Cloak & Dagger (TV 2018)
Genre: Dancing Lessons, F/M, Fluff without Plot, Inspired by Music, and how beautiful ty and tandy are together, basically this is me going on about how beautiful tyrone is, something short and sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 00:22:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20497805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireaway/pseuds/fireaway
Summary: Everyone looked worse in the light.Tyrone was the exception, not the rule.Tandy teaches Tyrone how to dance.





	Step Into the Daylight

**Author's Note:**

> Right off the bat, one of the first songs that caught my attention from Taylor Swift's new album was "Daylight." And basically, I was inspired to write a little something for Ty and Tandy.
> 
> (only proofread by me, but barely lol)
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

  
“If you keep touching me like that, we’re going to have a big problem.”  


Tyrone glances behind him at the girl whose front is flushed against his back and soft hands are gripped at his hips. 

She blows a blonde strand away from her face and zones in on the awkward positioning of his body. Her tongue peeks out between her lips. His posture is _shit_, she says under her breath, straightening his body and flexing his shoulders, all while failing to catch his fleeting innuendo. 

“Widen your stance.” 

She reaches down to give his thigh a quick tap before stepping away, “Show me second position.”

As he separates his feet, Tyrone’s face moves into a streak of sunlight that breaks through the window. The girl’s breath hitches when she sees his lips bathed in gold. 

“Am I doing this right?” 

He looks… off, for lack of a better word. Out of place. A little lost. One of these things is not like the other, and the answer is Tyrone Johnson, basketball player. 

Baggy shorts hang low around his waist, and the black sweatshirt he wears is stark in the golden glow of the empty dance studio. It doesn’t help his image that the socks on his feet smell like sweat and are probably the same ones he used at the semifinals the previous night. 

They won, by the way.

Which means Tyrone won their bet.

Which means Tandy Bowen has to teach him how to dance. 

Tandy purses her lips, tilts her head, squeezes an eye shut, and forces herself to find an angle where her boyfriend looks like he could be doing this right. 

But there is a reason why he sticks to basketball, and she sticks to ballet. Just like how there is a reason why he got stuck with the cloak and she with the daggers. 

It’s just how life works. 

“Nope,” Tandy says with a pop and shakes her head, giving up at turning the boy into a ballet dancer, “This isn’t working out.”

He deflates, “C’mon, love, you promised.”

Tyrone steps further into the sun, illuminating his features and casting shadows underneath the cheekbones. Her fingers itch to trace his jawline that is as sharp as her knives of light, and he looks warm, sweet, like honey. Tandy stares, mesmerized by how he glows, and although she has decided it is virtually impossible to teach him how to dance, she melts in the heat of his voice as he calls her.

_Love._

To him, she is _love._

She sighs, and he smiles, already knowing that she is giving in. 

“Yeah, whatever,” Tandy mutters.

Soon, she discovers that heated kisses on his neck are the key to loosen him up, and bless his heart for quickly removing the sweatshirt that kept his muscles hidden from view. 

“I told you we’d have a big problem.”

Tandy detaches her lips from his skin and glances down. And then further down. She scoffs and pushes away.

“I think _big_ is exaggerated.” 

He laughs and bites his lip. 

Soon after, she teaches him how to do a pirouette. 

“I’m sorry. A what?”

“A pirouette.”

Tyrone tries and fails to reiterate.

“Is that like a twirl, spin… rotation?”

She stares at him in silence, waiting for him to say _Just kidding!_ or _I was joking!_

He doesn’t say anything. Tandy resists the urge to hurl something at the mirror.

She demonstrates how to perform it, and Tyrone tries to mimic her movements. He does not even point his toes. It’s off balance, hard to watch, Tandy has to look away when he almost tips over. 

When he eventually falls nearly flat on his face, Tyrone bursts into a fit of laughter that sounds like music to her ears. He turns over to lie on his back, presses his palm against his bare stomach and laughs like he’s having the time of his life. The song is contagious, making her heart sing, so she joins and doubles over in laughter with him. 

There he is, basking in the sunlight, laughing on the floor of where she goes to channel her artistry. The very floor where she has stumbled and tripped when she danced. 

No one has ever looked more beautiful. 

“Dance with me,” Tandy whispers into the air between them. 

Tyrone’s laughter dies and smile fades at the breathlessness of her voice. Her eyes bore into his. He almost freezes at the intensity. 

“I thought you said I’m a terrible dancer.”

“That is very true,” she reaches to pull him to his feet, “But you’re learning.”

As the sun rises higher in the sky, their shadows shift and shorten behind them. The dust joins in their dance. Tandy leads him across the floor, feet traveling in something of a waltz. The sunlight paints his skin, brushes through her hair, and skims over their ears. She catches a glimpse of them in the mirror, a glowing aura illuminates and follows their movements. Even from this distance, she can see how her eyes are lit up, a glint dancing as they spin. Tandy turns to face Tyrone. She knows exactly why. 

“Can I try something?” 

Without warning, he spins her out and away from him, and Tandy gasps at his tug on her arm.

“And what’s that?” 

He spins and reels her back in. Her hands fly to meet his bare chest. His fingers trace the small of her back. She almost misses it, but Tyrone gives her a quick wink. 

“This.”

Tandy is blinded by the sunlight, as Tyrone dips her in the center of the room. 

It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust. Big brown eyes gaze at her, looking like caramel in the golden light. There is his chest, chiseled and sheen, and his smile beams brighter than the sun. From here, Tandy finally finds the best angle for him. He is gold, he is bright. She wants a picture to treasure this moment forever. Tyrone pulls her upright before she has the time to ingrain the image in her memory. 

“What? No comment?” he asks after a few seconds of silence, “Did I leave you speechless?”

Whatever quick remark she plans to throw at him dies in her throat. She would later blame it on her lack of sleep and his failure to buy her iced coffee due to his bouncing excitement and bubbling impatience to get their dance lessons started. But what Tandy would never tell Tyrone, what she would take to the _grave,_ is that the real reason she became dumbstruck was because of how lovely he looks in the daylight. 

It’s something she has to get used to. 

Tyrone takes the lead now, and although he’s a stumbling mess, Tandy having to keep him steady on his feet as he trips every thirty seconds, she thinks it’s the best dance she’s ever had. 

“You have real potential,” Tandy rests her hands over his shoulders, “With time, you could be a professional dancer.”

He eases her into his arms, swaying their bodies in the silence, wearing a smile that warms her like a duvet wrapped around her legs in the summer. 

“You make it easy,” a whisper into the air.

Tandy stills, going tense in his hold, yet her mind races, scouring her memories to locate the moment when she had heard those exact words escape from an entirely different boy.

“Tandy?” 

Tyrone questions just as her brain freezes and pulls out the mental file of an evening wedding reception, a pretty pink dress and _Liam._

Nails itch to scratch everything, ruin anything, _feel something._ She starts to see red. 

Liam who thought he could tame her. 

Liam who thought that he loved her. 

Tandy steels her eyes at Tyrone.

She wants to see honey, caramel and _gold._

“I guess I have to go harder on you now.” 

She pushes at his chest, seeking the momentum to rush to the edge of the room where her pointe shoes lay. Hurriedly, she slips them on, knotting the ribbons, and Tyrone studies how the daylight bounces off her white shirt and onto her face, looking heavenly. 

Once Tandy secures her shoes, she stands up with a flip of her golden hair. As she crosses the floor and passes through the paths of sunlight, he almost expects a halo to appear out of thin air and crown her round face. She looks angelic.

When she meets him in the middle with rosy cheeks and swollen lips (all thanks to him), Tandy enticingly feels down his arms before lacing their fingers together. She is enthralled at the sight of how their hands join, woven like waffles, connected by choice.

They are _divine._

“Follow my lead,” she says.

He nods. 

And so, they dance. 

The daylight guides them in spinning gold, and yes, Tyrone twirls and so does Tandy. He may not be flexible and steady on his feet, but if there’s one thing he’s mastered, it’s being attuned to her and everything that she does. It’s as if he and she are one. His partner in crime, his best friend. The girl he would follow to the ends of the earth, the moon and the stars. When she agilely moves across the room, he follows. When she bends her body and touches the floor, he mirrors. The sun blinks as the clouds come and go, blocking the light for a few seconds, even minutes, but Tandy and Tyrone’s connection never falters. 

They are dripping in gold through and through. 

When he lifts her into the air, Tandy expects to feel dizzy and disoriented, like a drug entering her system and intoxicating her. Her mind flashes to how she would roam around New Orleans in the dead of the night. Before Tyrone. Before the graveyard. Before he broke through the darkness like a lighthouse in a storm. She used substances to numb the pain and replace the loneliness. She searched for feelings in the thrill of cons and lifting wallets. She led on a boy who wanted more from her, but he could not make her feel like she was herself. He failed to make her feel like she was free and swimming in extravagance. She never saw gold with him.

But as Tyrone brings her back to her feet, Tandy realizes she did not feel any of that. Because Tyrone is not a drug, a substance, or a cheap thrill. And he is certainly not a boy who tries to convince her that he loves her. 

There is no convincing. There is no point to prove. 

Tyrone loves her. 

Without doubt.

Without holding her down. 

Without trying to tame her. 

He is freeing. He is steady. He is love in every way possible. 

They linger in each other’s hold. No longer moving, only taking in the sight of each other. The sun shines on them, so brightly, on all of their features and all of their flaws. Yet neither of them shy away. They are long past hiding from love and running from the ugly parts. With Tyrone, she is certain.

There is a catch though. 

Standing there in the golden light, seeing how his skin absorbs and drinks in the sun, Tandy beams at Tyrone, the boy who broke every expectation and rule in her book. 

Everyone looked worse in the light. 

Tyrone was the exception, not the rule. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Tyrone asks.

Tandy acts confused.

“Like what?”  


He shrugs. 

“I don’t know, like, I’m Orlando Bloom or something,” he jokes, and Tandy can’t help but laugh. 

She reaches out and traces his lips with her thumb. Bathed in gold. She leans in for a kiss. Warm from the sun. In all of her years of stealing money from pockets and hopes from dreamers, Tandy has never felt richer.

“I love you,” he whispers against her lips.

Her heart soars from his words. 

In this empty room, a silent studio, Tandy teaches Tyrone how to dance. Sure, he’s a terrible dancer, and her teaching abilities are borderline inadequate. But they have the light to guide them. They have the love to catch them as he dips her again and again. She witnesses the world flip upside down for a few seconds. 

The smile he gives her is blinding, yet she never wants to look away. 

“I love you back,” she says.

Then he dips her, one more time, and into a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> I may have gotten a little carried away with the gold and the sunlight, but... there are worse things to get carried away with lol.
> 
> say hi on tumblr: [@ctrls](https://ctrls.tumblr.com)


End file.
